Define a target region for a tag

For each analog, discrete, or summary tag in a trend, you can define a "target region." The target region is a highlighted area of the chart into which tag values should fall during normal operation. Values that fall outside these normal limits can be highlighted in a special color, making it easy to detect them.

The following chart shows an example of a target region (the area tinted in blue). The red spikes indicate limit excursions:

In a regular trend, you can only use target regions in relative time mode. A target region is defined by "region items," that is, pairs of high and low values at specific time offsets.

To determine the target region, a boundary is drawn that connects all of the high values, and another boundary that connects all of the low values. The area between these two boundaries constitutes the target region.

For example, assume that you define the following region items:

On a trend chart in relative time mode, these points look like the following:

The connecting boundaries look like the following:

The area between these boundaries constitutes the target region:

The target region has the same color as the tag’s trend curve. It is only shown when the tag is currently selected in the Tag List. Also, target regions are not visible if you are using stacked traces.

You can define and save target regions separately for each tag. Target regions are saved in the trend file. If you delete a tag from the trend, its target region is deleted as well. To use the same target region for multiple tags or in different trends, either copy and paste it or create a CSV file with the target region data that you can load for each tag. For more information, see the procedures below.

The following section explains how to set up a target region for a tag. To specify whether and how values outside the target region should be highlighted, and to set the target region’s opacity, see Configure target region properties.

To configure a target region for a trend tag

1. In the Tag List pane, do one of the following:

   • Right-click on the name of the tag and then click Configure.

   • Double-click on the name of the tag.

     The <ServerName:Tagname> dialog box appears with the General tab selected.

2. Click the Target Regions tab.

3. Edit region items by using any of the following procedures:

   • Edit region items manually

   • Load region items from a CSV file

   • Paste region items in CSV format from another application

   • Paste region items from another tag

   • Enable or disable a tag’s target region

4. Click OK. The target region appears in the trend chart, spanning the time period that you defined using the region items’ time offsets.

To edit region items manually

• Do any of the following:

  • To add an item, click Add. A new item appears in the list. Double-click each cell to edit it.

  • To delete an item, right-click it and click Cut.

  • To delete all items, click Clear All.

  • To move an item up or down in the list, select it and then click the up or down arrows.

To load region items from a CSV file

5. Click Load file. A standard Open dialog box appears.

6. Select the file you want and click Open. The list is populated with the entries from the CSV file.

   Note the following format requirements for the CSV file:

   • Each row must contain a region item composed of three values: the time offset, the low value, and the high value. The format of the time offset is the same as for time offsets in relative time mode. For more information, see Time offset formats.

   • The Trend application tries to determine the CSV delimiter and the decimal and time separators automatically. If one of the values contains a delimiter or separator character, that value must be enclosed in double quotation marks.

To paste region items in CSV format from another application

7. In the other application, open the file that contains the region items in CSV format. Copy the CSV data to the clipboard.

8. In the Trend application, right-click the list of region items, and then click Paste. The list is populated with the pasted entries.

   The format of the copied data must follow the same conventions as content in CSV files. For more information, see the previous section.

To paste region items from another tag

9. In the Tag List pane, double-click the name of the tag whose region items you want to copy. The <ServerName:Tagname> dialog box appears with the General tab selected.

10. Click the Target Region tab.

11. In the list of region items, select the item(s) you want to copy. To select multiple items, hold down SHIFT and/or CTRL while clicking.

12. Right-click the selected items and click Copy.

13. Click OK to close the dialog box. Repeat steps 1 and 2 for the tag where you want to paste the region items.

14. Right-click the list of region items and click Paste. The list is populated with the pasted entries.

To enable or disable a tag’s target region

15. In the Tag List pane, double-click the name of the tag. The <ServerName:Tagname> dialog box appears with the General tab selected.

16. Click the Target Region tab. Select or clear the Show target region check box to enable or disable the tag’s target region.

    Note: Regardless of this setting, the target region for a tag is only shown when that tag is currently selected in the Tag List.

17. Click OK.